Maoo [none/use name]

Russia has the power to stop the war and retreat.

I assumed that the folks rationalizing sending arms to Ukraine are people whose governments are doing so, or are otherwise in that sphere of influence. They can politically organize to stop that. They can’t politically organize to get Russia to do anything. That has to come from people organizing within Russia. I’m attempting to ground this discussion in the real world, which contrasts with the world of propsganda and facile abstraction that is unfortunately common, and implicitly devalues human life.

If someone here is a Russian in Russia, I encourage you to safely politically organize.

Yeah the west and Russia where saber-rattling. But Russia choose to act and it.

The West acted, of course. Destruction of the USSR, shock therapy, creating Russia’s political system (including supporting Putin’s group), NATO expansion, Euromaidan, funding Ukrainisn Nazis, refusing to implement Minsk II. All of this exists in a regime of maximizing domination.

And now promoting war, preventing diplomacy, sending weapons, trying to punish states falling out of line, causing global economic issues, particularly for poor countries, all because hurting Russia is more important than all of this suffering. Story of the 20th century, really. Fall of the USSR revealed, clearly to sll, that this apparatus was not defensive or reflexive, because it not only continued to operate, but ramped up in the absence of opposition.

The thing is putin will only use diplomacy on his on terms, and these terms alone will threaten the existence of Ukraines souveränity itself.

Russia’s general thrust of demanding a neutral Ukraine is as sovereign as it’s going to get for Ukraine, and would be more sovereignty than they had before or during this war. The status quo is a coup government that does the bidding of Western powers and doesn’t even have the de facto autonomy to even negotiate peace. Its current trajectory is to become a failed state picked apart by Western capitalists, probably with its Western portion taken over by Poland and its Eastern portion by Russia, but not before hundreds of thousands of more dead Ukrainians - normal, common people.

Personally, I don’t want that to happen and therefore oppose the status quo of funding the destruction of Ukrainians.

And victim blaming is never ok, even when you think the victim is an asshole.

Who is victim blaming? States are not people and I’ve pointed the finger at states. The victims here are the people of Ukraine and they are already suffering dearly under the policies I’m criticizing. The West, including through arms, treats them like expendable pawns to hurt Russia with, and has for at least a decade.

Indeed

That’s a false dichotomy, though it’s important to consider that the people in Ukraine suffer massively under the strategy of sending “aid” (which I described earlier in a comment removed with no explanation).

The Western/NATO approach, which is to say the US approach, has been to use UA to apply maximum pressure and pain on Russia. Prevent, avoid, disrupt peace talks. Saber-rattling. And prior to the war, funding Ukrainian Nazis and refusing to implement Minsk II. There have been so many options and opportunities, and the “stoke more war” button has been pressed every time.

The simplified answer is to use diplomacy to end the conflict. That is the best option for the lives of the people of Ukraine and for the existence of the country itself.

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UA, and by that I mean its state, has been a naked pawn since 2014, responding to Western interests to stoke and prolong civil war by the Russian border, target ethnic Russians with discrimination and violence (and Roma, and LGBTQ+ people, etc), and generally toy with joining NATO, a highly aggressive anti-Russian military organization.

The dominant Western propaganda narrative is to try to get everyone to forget the breathless reporting their media outlets did on Ukraine from 2013-2022 and to instead use absurd little terms like, “unprovoked invasion”, which I would guess is also where the idea of UA being simply defensive comes from. Yes, they were invaded by Russia, but they’ve also been ratcheting up pressure on Russia for a decade through various cynical moves, beginning with a coup against a government that was becoming slightly friendlier with Russia. The most notable events just prior to the RF invading was a huge ramping up of shelling of the Donbas, including civilian population centers.

Anyways, yes it is bad to keep pushing the “escalate and fight to the last Ukrainian button”. It would be much better if Ukraine were forced to negotiate peace and were not acting as a pawn against Russia rather than a state protecting its own people.

I’d like Ukrainians to be alive and not in a war.

Unicorn means one corn